What if Walt Disney had produced the Looney Tunes franchise?/Walt Disney Animated Classics/One Hundred and One Dalmatians
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (usually abbreviated as 101 Dalmatians) is a 1961 American animated comedy adventure film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based on the 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, and Wolfgang Reitherman, it was Disney's 17th animated feature film. The film tells the story of a litter of Dalmatian puppies who are kidnapped by the villainous Cruella de Vil, who wants to use their fur to make into coats. Their parents, Pongo and Perdita, set out to save their children from Cruella, all the while rescuing 84 additional puppies that were bought in pet shops, bringing the total of Dalmatians to 101. Originally released to theaters on January 25, 1961, by Buena Vista Distribution, One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a box office success, pulling the studio out of the financial slump caused by Sleeping Beauty, a costlier production released two years prior. Aside from its box office revenue, its commercial success was due to the employment of inexpensive animation techniques—such as using xerography during the process of inking and painting traditional animation cels—that kept production costs down. Disney released a live-action adaptation in 1996 and a sequel, 102 Dalmatians in 2000, and an theatrical sequel in 2003. Plot Pongo is a Dalmatian that lives in a London bachelor flat with his owner, professional songwriter Roger Radcliffe. Bored with bachelor life, unlike Roger who spends his days writing music, Pongo decides to find a wife for Roger and a mate for himself. While watching various female dog-human pairs out the window, he spots the perfect couple, a woman named Anita and her female Dalmatian, Perdita (or Perdy for short) heading to Regent's Park. He quickly gets Roger out of the house and drags him through the park to arrange a meeting. After an awkward and unusual meeting that goes awry, Pongo's efforts pay off and had accidentally caused both Roger and Anita to fall into a pond, but it works out well as they fall in love and, sometime later, marry. Once Roger and Anita get married, Perdita gives birth to a litter of 15 puppies. That same night, they are visited by Cruella de Vil, an eccentric and wealthy social parasite known to Anita from their school years. She offers the Radcliffes to buy the entire litter for a large sum, but Roger says they are not selling any of them, which Cruella furiously ends her friendship with Anita and storms out, vowing vengeance.. Weeks later, she hires two crooks named Jasper and Horace to kidnap them all. The humans try every effort to locate them but to no avail. When Scotland Yard is unable to prove she stole them or find them, Pongo and Perdita use the "Twilight Bark", normally a canine gossip line, to alert and ask for help from the other dogs in London to locate them. The first one to answer the call is the Great Dane. Colonel, an old sheepdog, along with his compatriots Captain, a gray horse, and Sergeant Tibbs, a tabby cat, find the puppies in a place called Hell Hall (aka The de Vil Place), along with others that Cruella had purchased from various dog stores. Tibbs learns they are going to be made into a dog-skin fur coat and Colonel quickly sends word back to London. Upon receiving the message, Pongo and Perdita immediately leave to retrieve their puppies. Meanwhile, Tibbs overhears Cruella ordering Jasper and Horace to kill and render them that night out of fear the police will soon find them. In response, Tibbs attempts to rescue them himself while Jasper and Horace are watching the television, but they finish the show and come for them before Tibbs can get them out of the house. Pongo and Perdita burst through a window just as Jasper and Horace have cornered them and are about to kill them. Horace is knocked into the fireplace and Jasper gets his pants pulled down while Colonel and Tibbs guide the puppies from the house. After a happy reunion with their own puppies, Pongo and Perdita realize there are 84 others with them in Cruella's possession. Shocked after learning of her plans, Pongo and Perdita decide to adopt them all, certain that Roger and Anita would never reject them. They begin making their way back to London, aided by other animals along the way; including a Collie who gives them shelter and food. However, Cruella, Jasper, and Horace are in hot pursuit of them and will stop at nothing to catch them. In order to try and fool them, they cover themselves with soot so they appear to be Labrador retrievers. They pile inside a moving van going back to London. As it is leaving, melting snow cleans off the soot and Cruella sees them through their disguises. In a maniacal rage, Jasper and Horace in their truck and Cruella in her car follow the van with the dogs inside. Cruella repeatedly rams it off the road (promptly damaging her car in the process), while Jasper and Horace attempt to cut it off from another direction to crashing into it. Jasper almost succeed to crashing into the van, but just as he is about to do so, a panicked Horace accidentally rips the steering wheel from the truck's dashboard, causing the vehicle to swerve out of control. Because of this, they end up colliding with Cruella and her car, sending both vehicles crashing into a deep ravine. Comically, they are shown and well among the wreckage of their demolished vehicles. Cruella berates Jasper and Horace for ruining everything, while weeping at anger and frustration over the loss of both her car and her dream coat and Jasper tells her to shut up, as the van drives away. Back in London, Roger and Anita are attempting to celebrate Christmas and Roger's first big hit, a song about Cruella, but they miss their canine friends. Suddenly, barking is heard outside and after their nanny opens the door, the house is filled with dogs. After wiping away more of the soot, they are delighted to realize the Dalmatian clan has returned home. They decide to use the money from the song to buy a large house in the country so they can keep all 101 Dalmatians. Voice cast * Rod Taylor - Pongo * Cate Bauer - Perdita * Betty Lou Gerson - Cruella de Vil; Miss Birdwell * Ben Wright (speaking) and Bill Lee (singing) - Roger Radcliffe * Lisa Davis - Anita Radcliffe * June Foray - Nanny * Martha Wentworth - Queenie; Lucy * Frederick Worlock - Horace; Inspector Craven * J. Pat O'Malley - Jasper; the Colonel * Thurl Ravenscroft - the Captain * David Frankham - Sergeant Tibbs * Barbara Beaird - Rolly * Mickey Maga - Patch * Sandra Abbott - Penny * Mimi Gibson - Lucky * Tudor Owen - Towser; Percival Faunswater * Queenie Leonard - Princess * Marjorie Bennett - Duchess * George Pelling - Danny * Tom Conway - Collie; Quizmaster * Ramsay Hill - Labrador; Television announcer * Lorraine Bracco - Shami * Dallas McKennon - Hound barks * Lisa Daniels * Paul Wexler * Helene Stanley * Barbara Luddy - Rover * Jeanne Bruns - radio singer "Cruella de Vil" Uncredited * Paul Frees - Dirty Dawson * Lucille Bliss - Kanine Krunchies singer * Clarence Nash - Dog barks * Mel Blanc as Prisoner/contestant in "What's My Crime?" * Rickie Sorensen - Spotty Production Story development Dodie Smith wrote the book The Hundred and One Dalmatians in 1956. When Walt Disney read it in 1957, it immediately grabbed his attention, and he promptly obtained the rights. Smith had always secretly hoped that Disney would make it into a film. Disney assigned Bill Peet to write the story, which he did, marking the first time that the story for a Disney animated film was written by a single person. Writing in his autobiography, Peet was tasked by Disney to write a detailed screenplay first before storyboarding. Because Peet never learned to use a typewriter, he wrote the initial draft by hand on large yellow tablets. He condensed elements of the original book while enlarging others, some of which included eliminating Cruella's husband and cat, as well compressing the two surrogate mother dogs into one character, Perdita. He also retained a scene in which Pongo and Perdita exchange wedding vows in unison with their owners, by which the censor board warned that it might offend certain religious audiences if the animals repeated the exact words of a solemn religious ceremony. The scene was reworked to be less religious with Roger and Anita dressed in formal clothes. Two months later, Peet completed the manuscript and had it typed up. Walt said the script was "great stuff" and commissioned Peet to begin storyboarding. Additionally, Peet was charged with the recording of the voice-over process. Although Disney had not been as involved in the production of the animated films as frequently as in previous years, nevertheless, he was always present at story meetings. When Peet sent Dodie Smith some drawings of the characters, she wrote back saying that he had actually improved her story and that the designs looked better than the illustrations in the book. Animation Art direction After Sleeping Beauty (1959) disappointed at the box-office, there was some talk of closing down the animation department at the Disney studio. During the production of it, Disney told animator Eric Larson: "I don't think we can continue, it's too expensive". Despite this, he still had deep feelings towards animation because he had built the company upon it. Ub Iwerks, in charge of special processes at the studio, had been experimenting with Xerox photography to aid in animation. By 1959, he had modified a Xerox camera to transfer drawings by animators directly to animation cels, eliminating the inking process, thus saving time and money while preserving the spontaneity of the penciled elements. However, because of its limitations, the camera was unable to deviate from a black scratchy outline and lacked the fine lavish quality of hand inking. Disney would first use the Xerox process for a thorn forest in Sleeping Beauty and the first productions to make full use of the process was Goliath II and several of the then-recent Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts. For One Hundred and One Dalmatians, one of the benefits of the process was that it was a great help towards animating the spotted dogs. Ken Anderson proposed the use of the Xerox on Dalmatians to Walt, who was disenchanted with animation by then, and replied "Ah, yeah, yeah, you can fool around all you want to". For the stylized art direction, Anderson took inspiration from British cartoonist Ronald Searle, who once advised him to use a Mont Blanc pen and India ink for his artwork. In addition to the character animation, Anderson also sought to use Xerography on "the background painting because I was going to apply the same technique to the whole picture". Along with color stylist Walt Peregoy, the two had the line drawings be printed on a separate animation cel before being laid over the background, which gave the appearance similar to the Xeroxed animation. Walt Disney disliked the artistic look of the film and felt Dalmatians was losing the "fantasy" element of the studio's other animated films. In a meeting with Anderson and the animation staff concerning future films, Walt said, "We're never gonna have one of those goddamned things" referring to Dalmatians's technique, and stated, "Ken's never going to be an art director again". Anderson took this to heart, but Walt eventually forgave him shorty after Dalmatians was a critical and commercial success, saying to him: "Ken, I forgive you for that thing you did on Dalmatians. I now realized that it wasn't so bad as I thought". In 1965, Walt offered Anderson to work as an art director on The Aristocats and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Live-action reference As with the previous Disney films, actors provided live-action reference in order to determine what would work before the animation process begun. Actress Helene Stanley performed the live-action reference for the character of Anita. She did the same work for the characters of Cinderella and Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. Meanwhile, Mary Wickes provided the live-action reference for Cruella de Vil Character animation Marc Davis was the sole animator on Cruella de Vil. During production, Davis claimed her character was partly inspired by Bette Davis (no relation), Rosalind Russell, and Tallulah Bankhead. He took further influence from her voice actress, Betty Lou Gerson, with whom he added her cheekbones to the character. He later complimented "that her voice was the greatest thing I've ever had a chance to work with. A voice like Betty Lou's gives you something to do. You get a performance going there, and if you don't take advantage of it, you're off your rocker". While her hair coloring originated from the illustrations in the novel, Davis found its disheveled style by looking "through old magazines for hairdos from 1940 till now". Her coat was exaggerated to match her oversized personality, and the lining was red because "there's a devil image involved". Casting Before starring in high-profile roles such as The Birds and The Time Machine, Australian actor Rod Taylor had extensive radio experience, and was cast as Pongo. The filmmakers deliberately cast dogs with deeper voices than their human owners so they had more power. Walt Disney originally had Lisa Davis read for the role of Cruella de Vil, but she did not think that she was right for the part, and wanted to try reading the role of Anita. Disney agreed with her after the two of them read the script for a second time. Betty Lou Gerson, who previously voiced Lady Tremaine for Cinderella, auditioned for the role of Cruella de Vil in front of Marc Davis and sequence director Wolfgang Reitherman, and landed it. While searching for the right accent of the character, Gerson landed on a "phony theatrical voice, someone who's set sail from New York but hasn't quite reached England". During the recording process, she was thought to be imitating Tallulah Bankhead. However, Gerson disputed, "Well, I didn't intentionally imitate her...I was raised in Birmingham, Ala., and Tallulah was from Jasper, Ala. We both had phony English accents on top of our Southern accents and a great deal of flair. So our voices came out that way". In addition to voicing Mrs. Birdwell, Gerson finished recording in fourteen days. Music One Hundred and One Dalmatians is also notably known for being the first Disney animated feature to be a non-musical. In order to have music involved in the narrative, Peet used an old theater trick by which Roger, Pongo's owner, is a down-and-out songwriter. However, unlike the previous animated Disney films at the time, the songs were not composed by a team, but by Mel Leven who composed both lyrics and music. Previously, Leven had composed songs for the UPA animation studio in which animators, who transferred to work at Disney, had recommended him to Walt. His first assignment was to compose "Cruella de Vil", of which Leven composed three versions. The final version used in the film was composed as a "bluesy number" prior to a meeting with Walt in forty-five minutes. The other two songs included in the film are "Kanine Krunchies Jingle" (sung by Lucille Bliss, who voiced Anastasia Tremaine in Disney's 1950 film Cinderella), and "Dalmatian Plantation" in which only two lines are sung by Roger at its closure. Leven had also written additional songs that were not included in the film. The first song, "Don't Buy a Parrot from a Sailor", a cockney chant, meant to be sung by Jasper and Horace at the de Vil Mansion. A second song, "Cheerio, Good-Bye, Toodle-oo, Hip Hip!" was to be sung by the dalmatian puppies as they make their way into London. A third song titled "March of the One Hundred and One" was meant for the dogs to sing after escaping Cruella by van. Different, longer versions of "Kanine Krunchies Jingle" and "Dalmatian Plantation" appear on the Disneyland Records read-along album based on the film. Release Home media Reception Box office Critical reaction Sequel Trivia